PLANNING AND EVALUATION CORE ABSTRACT The overall goal of the Planning and Evaluation Core is to assess adherence to our logic model and to meet the objectives needed to accomplish the SDSU/UCSD Comprehensive Cancer Center Partnership?s overarching goal: To reduce the burden of cancer among Hispanic/Latino communities in our catchment area. Our Partnership has continued to improve planning and evaluation approaches, with further refinement proposed in this renewal. This includes a collaborative multiple Principal Investigator (PI) structure that makes up the Partnership?s Executive Committee (EC). The partnership also includes a strong, multi-disciplinary Internal Advisory Committee (IAC) and a stellar group of highly-experienced investigators making up the Program Steering Committee (PSC). New to the Core is the development of a comprehensive, ongoing, outcome-oriented evaluation system that includes a Core Co-Lead expert in program evaluation. The objectives of the core are to: 1) Perform continuous planning, evaluation, and tracking of the Partnership?s activities guided by an engaged Internal Advisory Committee (IAC); 2) Implement an efficient and rigorous mechanism for soliciting and evaluating new research projects and evaluating the progress of existing projects; and 3) Assess the Partnership?s overall progress by highly experienced, unbiased, multi-disciplinary external experts forming our PSC. The IAC is made up of a Co-chair and five additional members from each institution, which provide expertise in health disparities, biological sciences, cancer prevention translational science, and medical oncology. The IAC also includes the Partnership PIs, the Program Managers, and an Ex officio member from the MCC Administration. The IAC will continue to provide ongoing guidance and support for the Partnership. This committee will be central to establishing priorities for the Partnership?s continued growth, assessing progress toward achieving its goals and objectives, and being responsible for all other aspects of internal planning and evaluation. The IAC will meet in person at least quarterly and more often if needed. The PSC is comprised of a Chair, the NCI Program Director as Ex Officio member, and four members ranging in expertise from medical oncology, health behavior, community interventions, and training and education. The PSC will be responsible for the external oversight, planning, and evaluation of the Partnership and provide a written report that includes an evaluation of Partnership progress and recommendations to NCI and the Partnership PIs. A logic model is proposed to guide our evaluation data collection for all components. This will include both process and outcome evaluation metrics which will be developed to ensure data are collected continuously to help the IAC, PSC and EC assess progress towards Partnership goals. Procedures are in place for solicitation, review, and evaluation of research projects. Evaluation criteria have been developed for new and ongoing projects. Our Partnership is guided by a talented group of investigators, advisors, and community members committed to accomplishing its goals. An efficient evaluation process is in place leading to continuous improvement in meeting the outcomes of the Partnership.